


Loosening Up

by MyRubicon



Series: Massages at MI6 [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Massage, Q is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17449211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyRubicon/pseuds/MyRubicon
Summary: James has released himself from Medical, and Q decides to help.





	Loosening Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tamuril2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamuril2/gifts).



> This is for Tamuril2, who wrote:
> 
> First off....please, please, pleeeease, write one where Q massages Bond. Please. I want Bond kinda freaked out, sure Q is hitting on him in some way, and then to realize that Q's just being a jerk/friend and teasing him...and also offering to massage his tension away (no slash, please). I really wanna read that. Can you write it?  
>   
> I'm not certain if this is what you had in mind. It became a bit less funny and more contemplative than I was aiming for initially, but this is what happened.

It bloody hurt.

The feeling was nothing new for James Bond, post-mission, when the last bit of adrenaline had worn off and his body started complaining quite insistently. The older he was getting, the louder and more vicious those complaints were becoming. Sometimes he thought, whimsically, that the more languages he was mastering, the more ways his body found to voice its displeasure. This sounded like a firm “chara”, maybe with an added “lech tiz-day-en”.

For a moment, he was tempted to mutter back a hearty, “tistom-tah-peh”, but for all he knew, medical was bugged, and swearing to himself in extremely vulgar Hebrew wouldn't exactly help his upcoming psych evaluation.

He bent his neck to the left first, then to the right. It gave a pop in reply, but didn't feel much better.

Back when he'd been a boy, he and his best friend had pranked Colin's mother by hiding an uncooked noodle in their mouths and, biting down on it, pretending to wrench their necks. The cracking sound had been really vicious, the reaction quite satisfying. He remembered running away from a startled, relieved and suddenly rather angry Mrs Alasdair, streaking away over the muddy lawn while the early spring sun was shining down on them warmly, the wind blowing away their laughter.

That had been such a long time ago, though, and the picture in his mind had become like an old, discoloured photograph, still cherished but inevitably fading. Now, there were only bright, artificial lights, colourless walls, sterile air, the hum of air conditioning and the popping sound of his neck. For a moment, he wondered what was more real, and if anything really was. Then he resolutely stuffed that thought back down; it certainly wouldn't help his psych evaluation, either.

He looked around the infirmary. As always, they wanted to keep him here, but it was a soul-destroying place, what little of it he had left, and he wasn't feeling quite awful enough not to care. So James Bond implemented his own extraction; it was what he was trained for, after all.

 

Q didn't seem all that surprised to see him.

Down in his domain, there still were bright, artificial lights, colourless walls and the hum of air conditioning, but at least the place wasn't silent as a tomb. There always was a certain energy pervading TSS; people were moving about or typing furiously, displays of complex schematics were changing, sometimes with dizzying speed, and there was the continuous clacking of keyboards and low murmur of voices in the background, sometimes even a louder exclamation. The sharp scent of heated metal and gunfire residue pervaded his nose, emanating from a side table where a boffin was systematically taking apart recently fired guns of different make and calibre, apparently measuring warping and attrition. And, of course, there was tea.

One of Q's minions was just bringing them two freshly brewed cups of tea, one in the Quartermaster's own Scrabble mug with its trademark subtle scent of oranges and another one with the caption, “I don't need anger management. I just need people to stop doing stupid shit that pisses me off.” The mug was clearly American, but the tea smelled like very decent Darjeeling, perfectly brewed, so Bond immediately forgave her and graced her with a lopsided smile of thanks.

The minion looked startled at first, then charmed and smiled back sweetly before she quickly scuttled away.

 

Q himself was looking tired; he had probably pulled an all-nighter again. This time, it wasn't James' fault, because the mission in the Gaza Strip had been over at a mostly decent time, and he'd been on a plane and then in debriefing and medical for the last few hours.

“Gun's gone down the river again, 007?” Q asked with a resigned sigh, closing his eyes for a moment as he breathed in the fragrant steam of his Earl Grey.

“Quite literally, Q,” Bond drily replied. It was, in this case, the river Jordan. “But I have the radio transmitter. It even should be working. Well, when I say working...”

He offered up the small, battered-looking silvery piece of plastic.

“Thank you, 007,” the quartermaster said, precise and desert-dry.

They looked at each other, both mouths turning up into faint smiles, Q shaking his head ruefully. They both looked a bit older than they had that day in the National Gallery where they had first met, but Q still had that thick mop of dark curls, the same pale skin and soft voice with the cut-glass accent, and Bond, well, he supposed he had even more grey in his hair, but, unlike Turner's The Fighting Temeraire, he still hadn't been hauled away to scrap.

Bond nodded in silent acknowledgement. His Darjeeling had cooled down enough for a first cautious sip, and it was excellent. Then he carefully put the still rather full mug down and once more cracked his neck. Again, it didn't really help.

Q put the transmitter down on his desk with a click, looked at the agent and seemed to come to a decision. “Come along, Bond,” he said as he picked up his tea and started towards his office.

Bond took his own mug and did as he was told; Q was an exec, after all. Also, he found himself slightly intrigued as he followed the slender younger man through the sliding door.

 

Q's office was austere and functional, giving up little about its owner. Bond had seen people work with two or three wide-screen monitors before; Q had six. With anyone else, that would have seemed pretentious in the extreme; with the genius boffin, it just seemed to make sense. About a third of his desk was taken up by a gutted laptop and delicate silvery tools, but other than that, there was no hint of clutter, not a framed picture in sight, not even a scrap of paper. The only personal possession were four small, painted figurines of hideous gremlin-like creatures, one blue, one green, one red and one brown, mounted on an aluminium square that looked as if it might have come out of the workshops of R&D, with a laser-cut inscription of OVERLORD.

The room wasn't exactly silent, but the noises from the open-plan office next door were muted when he closed the door behind him. The colours were also muted, but the light seemed just a tad warmer than outside. The effect was surprisingly restful, and Bond caught himself in a soft exhale.

 

Q motioned for the agent to sit on the couch while he went over to an office sideboard that was a lot more functional than fancy.

The wide anthracite couch looked as if it had come from IKEA but felt much more comfortable, almost luxuriously so. Considering, as scuttlebutt had it, that the quartermaster habitually spent more time on it than in his own bed at home, that made quite a lot of sense. Bond gave a soft sigh as a sudden, leaden tiredness swamped him. In medical, he had felt so uncomfortable that he knew he wouldn't find any rest there. His tendency to release himself had less to do with the sheer bloody-mindedness that was attributed to him – and not unfairly, to be honest – but with what the Chinese would have called Feng Shui and Bond would call basic psychology, if he'd bothered to put a name to it. He drained his mug of Darjeeling, wishing briefly for a Vodka Martini. He would even accept an olive instead of a thin lemon peel.

Q turned back to him with a large fluffy towel, two smaller ones stacked on it and a plastic tube on top, and Bond raised his eyebrows.

“Bare your torso, 007,” the younger man instructed him, his tenor still calm, almost clinical.

Bond fluttered his short blond eyelashes and put his left hand above his heart in a gesture reminiscent of a Victorian damsel. “Why, Q, I didn't know you cared.”

Q's lips twitched, and his eyes showed genuine amusement as he stepped closer. “I care about all of my agents, Bond.”

“Do you habitually ask all of them to undress for you?” the commander replied even as he slipped out of his suit jacket and loosened his icy blue tie, just a hint lighter than his eyes.

“Just those who really need it,” Q replied, smiling now.

Bond had had all manners of smiles directed at him during his career, threatening ones, seductive ones, cold ones, greedy ones, predatory ones, calculating ones, empty ones. Q's smile was simply warm.

His body language was non-threatening, but not out of a sense of fear of his lethal agents; it was his habitual, comfortable way of carrying himself. While most men stood with their legs shoulder-width or wider apart, Q's legs were closed. There were other hints about him that the young man was possibly gay, but he was never obvious about it. He was always so professional and pragmatic, and he never seemed offended by any attempts to flirt with him, but neither did he seem flattered or tempted. For him, sexuality simply didn't appear to belong in the workplace. For Bond, on the other hand, it was an integral part of his work.

He languidly loosened his tie, then, in a slow, sinuous movement, he let the expensive Italian silk slide sensually up his chest and around his neck, all the while holding eye contact with the younger man.

Q's lips curled upwards in amusement, but he simply stepped over to the grey wardrobe in the back of his office to retrieve two coat-hangers. For someone who habitually wore the ugliest cardigans known to mankind, this was certainly considerate of him.

The quartermaster walked back towards him and Bond observed him like a hawk for even a hint of hesitation or desire. Those intelligent hazel eyes remained warm, amused and calm, though.

The double-oh agent maintained eye-contact as he slowly, seductively slipped free one small, pearly button after the other of his bespoke shirt. As he pulled free his shirt-tails, he slightly opened his lips.

Q remained unruffled, though, and simply hung up Bond's suit jacket with unhurried precision, then accepted his shirt with the same unshakable calm.

Bond raised his eyebrows again.

Q replied to the unspoken question, mildly amused, “Contrary to your expectations, 007, I do wear suits on occasion. I know not to hang a jacket over the back of a chair; it ruins the lines.”

And really, there was one single suit of his in the wardrobe, slim and of uncompromising black, along with several shirts ranging from sober white to the strangely pattered ones he wore under his hideous cardigans. It was difficult to guess from the distance, but Bond's bet for the suit was on either Vivienne Westwood or Alexander McQueen.

As Q turned away to hang up Bond's clothes, the agent's eyes dropped to the stack of towels and the plastic tube. The towels were of a thick, expensive quality but of a sombre grey colour. The first impression of austerity was thoroughly ruined, though, by the tie-fighters and x-wings embroidered near the hem. And the plastic tube, well, it wasn't lube, as he had almost expected for a moment, but a high-grade massage oil.

Nearly all of the massages in Bond's life had been amateur ones, most of which had led to sex and some of which had led to murder attempts. Sometimes, the murder attempts had been more creative and exciting than the sex, but he was still somewhat attached to this mortal coil.

“I did bring back the radio transmitter,” he heard himself say in a cautious tone.

Q chuckled at the reminder, his eyes still amused and warm as he turned back to the agent who was now voluntarily stretching out on the couch, belly down and face turned towards the younger man.

“You've nothing to fear from me, Bond,” Q said in his soft, posh tenor. “You're home now.”

Then he rubbed his long-fingered hands vigorously to warm them up, a fact that Bond appreciated while he was still trying to wrap his head around the strange fact that apparently, right now, Q had no expectations, nothing to gain from him. Sure, soon enough he would be equipped and sent out on a new mission, but this, right now, was outside of their usual duties. There was no-one to fuck or kill, nothing to steal or blow up. There was just his leaden tiredness, his aching back and neck and a pair of warm, surprisingly strong yet gentle hands.

Somehow, Bond had expected it to hurt. It didn't. Those long fingers that flew over keyboards effortlessly, precisely soldered the tiniest parts or fired weapons with ease were gentle on his aching, hardened muscles, loosening them by degrees with great patience and skill. As warmth and relaxation finally began to seep into him after nearly three weeks of constant strain and vigilance, Bond permitted his heavy eyelids to fall closed. Nothing expected of him. No hidden agenda. No danger. Safe. Home.

 

Bill Tanner, when he stepped into Q's office about half an hour later, didn't quite manage to suppress his smirk.

The quartermaster was at it again, another powerful man lying prone before him, entirely at his mercy. Bond, one of the most paranoid, dangerous bastards in Her Majesty's Secret Services, was in fact so relaxed that he didn't even bother to open his eyes when the door opened and closed again. He only dimly noticed that those wonderful, warm hands withdrew and that he was covered with a large, soft, fluffy towel instead.

“Let him rest for a while,” Q softly said. “He needs it.”

Bill Tanner simply nodded.

And Bond slept. Safe. Home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Translations (Hebrew to English):  
> chara - shit  
> lech tiz-day-en - fuck off (when addressing a man)  
> tistom-tah-peh - shut the fuck up (when addressing a man)
> 
> I don't speak Hebrew myself, so please correct me if I'm wrong.


End file.
